My Alberta politics #tbt: Tsunami edition

There were 70 rookie MLAs elected on May 5, including the PC member for Calgary Fish Creek.

I noticed him speaking in the legislature during Thursday’s question period, and remembered speaking with him way back in 2004.

I interviewed Richard Gotfried very early on in my career at the Calgary Sun, after the devastating tsunami that hit south Asia.

He and colleagues from Trico Homes were on vacation in Phuket, Thailand when disaster struck.

Wayne Chiu and Don Howie were in the water when the massive wave hit, while Richard watched from his hotel room, knowing he could easily have been on the beach and caught up in the disaster.

CITY MEN GLAD TO BE ALIVE

Dave Breakenridge, Calgary Sun

Just days after they were tossed along the rocks on a Thai beach, two Calgarians are counting their blessings in a Hong Kong hotel.
Trico Homes president and founder Wayne Chiu, who was snorkeling with colleague Don Howie off a Phuket beach when the wave struck, said he has been deeply affected by the traumatic event.
“This is a natural disaster and the waves are so strong that you learn a lesson: Don’t fool around with Mother Nature,” he said.
“I hope this will teach the people of Southeast Asia to have a better warning system.”
Chiu and Howie were the only ones from the group of 20 Trico employees and family who were out in the water.
When the first wave came, they were bounced along the rocks before being able to scramble to safety.
“I really treasure my family and my life right now,” he said, adding had his wife and children not stopped to shop in the hotel, they would have been on the beach when the waves struck.
“That 10 or 15 minutes likely saved their lives.”
Chiu was so affected by the disaster and the aftermath, he said he will definitely do what he can to give to the relief effort.
Howie, Trico’s vice-president of sales and marketing, said he’s “glad to be alive.”
“We saw the power of the water from the water’s side,” he said.
Though he was injured, Howie said the most compelling stories were of people who lost everything, like the baby he saw in hospital, likely the child of tourists, who had to be brought in by a stranger because her family was lost.
Meanwhile, for Trico marketing manager Richard Gotfried, this was his second trip to the region fraught with disaster.
In May 1999, he was one of seven Canadians on a cruise ship that sank off the coast of Malaysia.
All 1,000-plus people on board survived.
“Having been through the sinking of the ship without a single loss of life and then this, it definitely shows you the fragility of life, but it also shows you the resilience,” he said.
“The Thai people really did rally around to get water, to get food, to help us seek shelter on higher ground.”
Gotfried, who has been to the region more than 60 times, said he watched the waves thunder in from his hotel room, and realized he and his family could have been among the dead or injured.
“Every other day, we had been down on the beach with our three kids,” he said.
“We knew there was a tremendous loss of life — many people were pulled to their deaths when the water receded.”
Though he is relieved his colleagues came out not badly injured and their entire party has since moved onto Hong Kong, he has a tremendous amount of empathy for the people of all the affected areas.
“My first concern was for the people there … these are poor people earning a meagre livelihood on the beach,” he said.

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Dave Breakenridge

Dave Breakenridge is the Online Content Editor of the Calgary Sun - responsible for local news on calgarysun.com, original online content, as well as writing a weekly column with a strong focus on Calgary issues. He also maintains the blogs Breaken' it Down and Thirsty Writin' Scoundrels. A nine-year resident of Calgary, he has covered myriad issues at the Calgary Sun as a reporter, including crime, education, health, politics and pop culture. An Edmonton native, he is also a former radio broadcaster and a graduate of Grant MacEwan University's journalism program.

Dave Breakenridge is the Sun's deputy city editor, newspaper columnist, political junky, art scene lover and social media connoisseur.